St. Peter's Church: Faith in Action for 250 Years

Chapter 9: From a Side Pew

George E. ἀ omas Meditations on the “Saints” From a Side Pew: 9 During the late 1980s, while I was working on the manuscript that became Frank Furness: ἀ e Complete Works, I usually spent Sunday mornings in a box pew on the north side of St. Peter’s Church while my daughter Kate sang in Tom Whittemore ’s choir. ἀ e service offered a respite from the mash of too many events scheduled in too few hours and provided an opportunity to reflect and think, particularly during the sermons. Having come from three generations of ministers, I knew the agony and effort that a weekly sermon required—but I also felt I had done my part in listening to my family’s efforts. In any event, I discovered that during the fifteen minutes of Wendel (Tad) Meyer’s typically beautifully constructed but softly spoken sermons, I could organize my own thoughts as issues came up in my writing. In the quiet of the pew, looking out over the congregation and reading and thinking about the memorials on the walls, I sometimes wondered about institutions and their meaning to a community. My research on Frank Furness presented a peculiar problem. In the twentieth century all of Furness’s office records had been thrown out, making it necessary to re-create the list of his clientele. After five years of digging, I found that his many clients had become part of my active memory, and their names leapt off the pages of newspapers and journals, and, as it turned out, off the walls on Sunday mornings. During my reveries at St. Peter’s, my eyes would often wander around the church and pause on the monuments that line the walls. In one service, I found myself sitting very near the northwest doorway, with the Rosalie Morris Johnson plaque visible to my left. Had the plaque mentioned only her name, nothing much might have occurred to me, but it was also inscribed with the name of her husband, R. Winder Johnson, who I (Photo by Alan J. Heavens) 120 St. Peter’s Church: Faith in Action for 250 Years knew was the owner of an important Furness house at the corner of 22nd and Spruce Streets, an area that was a particular hotbed of Furness residential commissions. With Holy Trinity Chapel diagonally across from the Johnson house, I wondered why the Johnsons were memorialized in St. Peter’s, half a city away. Subsequent research found the ties that held over time and space. R. Winder Johnson (1854–1910) was born at 727 Pine Street, just four blocks west of St. Peter’s and a few doors from its rectory, then at 717 Pine. In 1884, he celebrated his marriage to Rosalie, the daughter of Elizabeth Kuhn Morris and George Calvert Morris, at St. Peter’s. Later, the Johnson children were baptized at St. Peter’s, and in 1891 Johnson was elevated to the vestry (as his father-in-law had been earlier). In short, while the family resided in Rittenhouse Square, their institutional center remained in the old heart of the city, in the eighteenth-century church. On the far side of St. Peter’s, opposite my usual seat, was the dark, almost illegible bronze marker to John Welsh (1805– 1886), who in 1880 commissioned Furness to update a stone country house off Wissahickon Avenue and in the previous decade had played a crucial role in making a success of the U.S. Centennial Exposition, which brought Memorial to Rosalie Morris Johnson. She and her husband lived in Rittenhouse Square, but their institutional center remained in the old part of the city. George Calvert Morris, at St. was elevated to the vestry (as his father-in-law had been earlier). In short, while the family resided institutional center remained in the old heart of the city, in the On the far side of St. Peter’s, opposite my usual seat, was the marker to John Welsh (1805– 1886), who in 1880 commissioned Furness to update a stone country house off Wissahickon decade had played a crucial role in making a success of the U.S. Centennial Exposition, which brought Chapter 9: From a Side Pew: Meditations on the “Saints” 121 Furness national attention. Welsh was also the father of another important Furness client, John Lowber Welsh, who had served in Furness’s cavalry unit during the Civil War and...